Laurent Degos

Laurent Degos (born July 9, 1945 in Paris ) is a French doctor ( hematology , oncology , immunology , genetics ).

Laurent Degos, the son of Robert Degos , studied medicine in Paris and at the Harvard School of Health (Diploma in Management of Biomedical Research 1976). From 1967 to 1974 he completed his specialist training at the Hôpital Saint-Louis with Jean Dausset and Jean Bernard and received his doctorate in human biology and population genetics in 1973 and in medicine in 1974.

From 1979 he was Professor at the University of Paris VII , from 1990 Head of the Blood Diseases Department at the Hôpital Saint-Louis and from 1993 to 2003 Director of the University Institute of Hematology. From 1985 to 1997 he was head of the research unit for immunogenetics in transplantation there, succeeding Jean Dausset. In 1997 he became Professeur de class exceptionelle .

From the 1960s onwards he dealt with the genetics of HLA , which he also used to investigate prehistoric migration routes of populations. In the 1970s he clarified the molecular basis of various blood diseases ( Glanzmann's thrombasthenia , Bernard-Soulier syndrome ). He also examined the glycoproteins on blood platelets, which are starting points for drugs against thrombosis .

In 1982 he used low doses of cytarabine as a cancer chemotherapeutic agent in the first differentiation therapy against tumor cells. With Wang Zhenyi from Shanghai he developed the chemotherapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia (APML) with tretinoin (ATRA), also a differentiation therapy. Almost one hundred percent remission could be achieved there (the results from China were published in 1988 and those from France in 1990).

Degos has been a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences since 1996 . In 1994 he received the Kettering Prize with Wang Zhenyi. Both scientists were awarded the Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research in 1997 . He is an honorary doctor of the University of Shanghai, Knight of the Palmes Académiques , Knight of the Legion of Honor and an officer of the Ordre national du mérite .

From 2005 to 2010 he was in the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS).

Fonts

• L. Degos, J. Dausset: Human migrations and HLA linkage disequilibrium. In: Immunogenetics. 1, 1974, pp. 195-210.
• S. Castaigne, MT Daniel, H. Tilly, P. Herait, L. Degos: Does treatment with ARA-C in low dosage cause differentiation of leukemic cells? In: Blood. 62, 1983, pp. 85-86.
• H. de Thé, C. Chomienne, M. Lanotte, L. Degos, A. Dejean: The t (15,17) translocation of acute promyelocytic leukaemia fuses the retinoic acid receptor alpha gene to a novel transcribed locus. In: Nature. 347, 1990, pp. 558-561.
• S. Castaigne, C. Chomienne, MT Daniel, P. Ballerini, R. Berger, P. Fenaux, L. Degos: All-trans retinoic acid as a differentiation therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia. I. Clinical results. In: Blood. 76, 1990, pp. 1704-1709.
• C. Chomienne, P. Ballerini, N. Balitrand, MT Daniel, P. Fenaux, S. Castaigne, L. Degos: All-trans retinoic acid in acute promyelocytic leukemias. II. In vitro studies: structure-function relationship. In: Blood. 76, 1990, pp. 1710-1717.
• L. Degos, C. Chomienne, MT Daniel, R. Berger, H. Dombret, P. Fenaux, S. Castaigne: Treatment of first relapse in acute promyelocytic leukaemia with all-trans retinoic acid. In: Lancet. 336, 1990, pp. 1440-1441.

Books:

• L. Degos: A, B, C, D de HLA. Ed. Masson, 1988.
• L. Degos: Text Book on Malignant Hematology. 2nd Edition. Martin Dunitz, London 2003.
• L. Degos: Le don reçu. Plon, Paris 1990.
• L. Degos: Les greffes d'organe. Flammarion, Paris 1994.
• L. Degos: Les nouvelles aventures de Candide. Editions Le Pommier, Paris 1999.
• L. Degos: Promenade à l'intérieur de la cellule. Editions Le Pommier, Paris 1999.
• Jean-Pierre Alix, Dominique Jolly, Laurent Degos: Doit-on soigner une maladie ou un malade? Flammarion Médecine-Sciences, Paris 2002.
• L. Degos: Cloner est-il immoral? Ed. Le Pommier, Paris 2002.
• L. Degos: Peut-on vaincre le cancer? Ed. Le Pommier, Paris 2004.
• L. Degos: Les organes de mon corps. Editions Le Pommier, Paris 2006.
• L. Degos, R. Foglia: Goutte à goutte, la vie reviendra-t-elle? Editions La Bruyère, 2007.
• L. Degos, S. Jansem: Les défenses de mon corps. Editions Le Pommier, Paris 2009.
• L. Degos: Santé: sortir des crises. Editions Le Pommier, Paris 2011.

Web links

• Biography at INSERM